Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 April 1943 — Page 21

, ~ without a name,

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1943

Inc

ianapolis

‘Hoosier Vagabond |

NORTHERN TUNISIA (By Wireless).—Thousands are the soldiers who want someday to bring their wives and children back to Tunisia, in times of peacs, ‘and take them over the battlefields we have

come to know 50 well. But except for the cities they

< * will not find much to remind them of the ferocity that existed here. I have recently traveled over the Tunisian battle area—both the part we knew so intimately be‘cause it was on our side and the part we didn’t know at all because the Germans lived there at the time. y You don’t see the desolated countryside we remember {rom pictures of France 'in the last war.

That is because the fighting has.

been mobile, because neither side used peimmanent huge guns, and because the country is mostly treeless and empty. But there are some marks left, and I'll try to give you examples in this and tomorrow's column. East of El Guettar, down a broad valley through which runs a nice macadam road, you see dark ob- - jects sitting far off on the plain. These are burnedout tanks of both sides.

“This Village Has Died’

OUR SOLDIERS have already retrieved everything worth-while from the German debris, but you can still find big wrenches, oil-soaked gloves, and twisted shell cases. : a in the shade of one tank, not five feet from the great metal skeleton, is the fresh grave of a an tanker, marked by a rough, Wooden Cross

There are many of these tanks scattered miles apart through the valley. On the hillsidés you can still see white splotches— powder marks from our exploding artillery shells.

A Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

MAURICE LUNG, superintendent of the state fish hatcheries, was to gé home today from Methodist - hospital where he underwent an emergency appendectomy a week ago. He went to the hospital for a Checkup and was hurried to bed. A couple of days later his wife went to St. Vineent’s for the birth of a fine 9pound girl which Mr. Lung hasn’t seen yet. . . . Some of the fellows at lunch the other day got to swapping gardening experiences. Bill Hacker, assistant superintendent of schools, told of being in a seed store when a man came in and asked some help in laying out ‘a garden plot. It was 12 by 10 feet. The clerk sold him, among other things, a whole quart of seed sweetcorn. . . . Virgil Sheppard, Red Cross director, said the fellow who plowed ‘his garden plot told of being engaged to plow up another victory gardener’s plot. When he arrived with his tractor and double bottom plow, he found * a garden space about 12 feet square and had to pass

\_~ up the job as he couldn't even turn around in that

much ground.

A Around the Town

THE COAST GUARD took over a"boat owned by Fred Appel down in Florida some months ago, .- reports the RatioNews, published by the county ra- - tioning administratién. Now Mr. Appel, a member of board 49-1 has been notified that the boat is to be turned back to him but that first he’d have to go . before some sort of board down in Florida. “Florida "is. too far away to be monkeying with a thing like that,” ‘he said. So he turned the whole thing over to a fellow down in Florida to recover and sell, giving him half the proceeds. . . . Pvt. Carl Dortch, the C. of C. research director who was inducted recently, now is stationed at Clearwater, Fla., in the air corps. . . . Home on leave is Lt. Edwin Rose (of International News Service) sporting brand-new (only three days old) shoulder bars. He's due back in New York in a

J ap. Executions ‘By William Philip Simms

WASHINGTON, April 23.—News that the Japanese have executed some of the American fiiers who fell into their hands after the Doolittle raid sent a shock of ‘norror through Washington. It may well speed up the. war in the Pacific. If there were ever any doubt that this country would support the increasing demand that axis war criminals be severely punished, there is certainly none now. for while Pearl Harbor was a sneak punch of the jqmost despicable order, after all it was an act of war, however low. The execution of the American fliers was murder. Many stories of ‘Japanese atrocities have leaked out of the Far East since the war began, some of them almost unbelievable. Yet many of us are personally "acquainted with one or more victims of Japaneses. torture, and their stories cannot be discounted. : There is John B. Powell, former editor of the China Weekly Review. He lost both feet through inhuman treatment in a Japanese jail in Shanghai. Then there are Otto Tolischus and other newspapermen who were thrown into prison and beaten, starved and otherwise mistreated and humiliated.

Capital Shocked and Amazed

"WASHINGTON OFFICIALS are not only shocked but amazed by this new revelation of Japanese barbarity. They are amazed because long ago they came to regard these little brown men of the Orient as highly eivilized. Time ‘had stood still for a thousand years in China, some figured, but in Nippon an astounding thing had happened. In. less than a century the inhabitants of that astounding country had caught up with the world procession. Within 80 years of Commodore Perry's “opening up of the country” in 1853,

v Day

i= PT. WORTH. Tex, Thursday —We reached Corpus ‘Christi, Tex, ‘yesterday morning about 12:30, and ‘at once to the naval air training station,

7 ‘where the gentlemen, including President Roose-.

velb and -President Camacho, with three ladies, Mrs. “Alfred Montgomery, wife of the admiral in command, Mme. Ca-

macho, and myself, lunched at °

“the cadets’ mess. The. other ladies of the party lunched with : the WAVES. “At the end of our ‘meal, Mrs. Montgomery, Mme. Camacho and I left the gentlemen and went to the WAVES for a short time, so IT missed hearing

my husband speak to the cadets..

. There is quite a big contingent. of WAVES ‘here.

Home Front Morale

-the country; there wis nothing he liked better than

I was

There are frequent filled-in holes in the macadam where artillery dive bombers took their toll. Now and then a little graveyard with wooden crosses stands lonesomely at the roadside. But for all these things you must look closely. There was once a holocaust here but it left only a slight permanent mark. It is sort of hard to disfigure acres of marigolds and billions of blades of fresh desert grass. . Sidi bou Zid, the little white village I saw destroyed by shellfire back in February, it pitiful to look at. The village almost doesn’t exist any more. Its dozens of low stone adobe buildings, stuccoed a snowy white, are nothing now but rockpiles. This village has died.

Germans Left Mine Fields

FAID PASS is the last pass in the Grand Dorsal before the-drive eastward onto the long fiat plain that leads to the Mediterranean at Sfax. For months we looked with longing eyes at Faid. A number of times we tried to take it and failed. But when the Germans’ big retreat came they left Faid Pass voluntarily. And they left it so thorough and maliciously mined that even today you don't dare drive off onto the shoulder of the road, or you may get blown to kingdom come. . Our engineers go through these mine fields with electrical instruments, locate the mines. and surround them with warning notices until they can later be dug up or exploded. These notices are of two types—either a white ribbon strung around the mire area on knee-high sticks, or else stakes with oppositely pointing arrows on top. The white arrow pointing to the left meaning that side is safe, the red arrow pointing to the right meaning that side is mined. And believe me, after seeing a few mine-wrecked trucks and jeeps you fear mines so dreadfully that you find yourself actually leaning away from the side of the road where the signs are, as you drive past.

(Continmed ed Tomorrow)

week or so. . . . Seen on Massachusetts ave.: A woman, attired in slacks, standing on a narrow window ledge and washing a window.

BILL MYERS, The. Times’ photographer now in pilot training at the army flying school at Waco, Tex., sent a nice present to the boys and girls in The Times’ editorial department. It was a whole carton of chewing gum. Bill wrote that he’d heard things were “pretty tough” back here and he thought the boys in the army ought to keep up the home front morale. . . . Sgt. Richard A. Hoover, the former Civic theater director, reports from down at Camp McCain, Miss., that one of the eight softball diamonds at the camp has been named “Butler field” in honor of our own Butler university. The name was chosen by Lt. Col. Alvin C. Warren, an enthusiastic supporter. of Butler, whose “two sons .participated in activities there.” Sgt. Hoover is assistant to the specials service officer at Camp McCain. . . . Gambling Note: One of the boys reports that the slot machines are in operation again at one of the country clubs. At least they were before this item appeared.

To Good to Be True

THE HEAD of a prominent insurance firm advertised for a houseman and listed his phone number in the ad. The next day he received a call from a man who seemed almost too good to be true. Yes, the man just loved to keep the car shining, to work in

keeping the house clean and polished, and, as for children—he simply adored taking care: of them, “Come on out,” said the insurance man, The fellow explained that because of certain circumstances which he couldn’t explain, he wouldn’t be able to report for a few days. But he gave the name of “my lawyer” as a reference. When the insurance man called the lawyer, the latter laughed. “What are you laughing it?” stormed the insurance man. “Why,” chuckled the lawyer, “I was just wondering how that guy got to the phone. He's a patient out at the Central State hospital.” And so he was.

the Japs had licked not only the vastly bigger China, but Russia as well, then looked upon as the strongest military power on earth. To Washington—and to other world capitals, be it said—that spelled “civilization.” And, oddly enough, Americans took a certain pride in Japan’s feat. Didn't we have a hand in it? Wasn't it our Perry and his four black ships that lifted Japan out of centuries of seclusion? And did we not for decades thereafter take the lead in guiding her first faltering steps toward Westernization?

Congress Eyes the Racific

WHAT MANY in Washington have forgotten, however, is that one of the chief motives behind Commodore Perry's mission was to save shipwrecked sailors from torture and death at the hands of the Japanese. The dangerous and unlit coasts had long been a death trap for foreign ships and their crews. Wrecked vessels were pillaged and their crews killed’ without mercy. . For hundreds of years before Perry, explorers, traders and missionaries had been trying to civilize the Japanese. But they seem to have made progress backward rather than forward. They were periodically massacred, brutalized, humiliated until finally, some two centuries before the arrival of our black ships, only a handful of Dutch remained. These were cooped up like animals in a Zoo on a tiny, ‘island about 300 yards wide near Nagasaki.

Once a year they were taken to Kyotc and there made

to crawl and climb and make obscene noises in imitation of monkeys, or, as the Japanese ‘put it, like the Dutch and other foreigners. "On July 8 it will be exactly 90 years since Perry dropped anchor in Uraga harbor, near what is now Tokyo. Today Washington is asking if four-score-years-and-ten are quite enough to do mere than cover a truly barbarous race with a veneer. That is one reaction to the murder of the American fliers. The second is that congress will almost certainly demand that more attention be paid to the Pacific,

.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

By Ernie. Pyle

Mexican aviation cadets and their complete. ground,

crews were presented to both their own president and to President Roosevelt. They are a fine looking set of young men. I understand that at this training station :there are also groups from other South and Central American countries, so we are putting a real good neighbor policy into action. We drove all over the station, through the repair shop and, finally, out to a point of vantage where we could see many planes fly over us in formation. They gave us an exhibition of dive bombing, which was quite extraordinary and thrilling to watch. ‘Back on the train, Mme. Camacho and I sat listening while the two presidents talked for an hour before we reached the junction where our two trains separated. When President and Mme. Camacho boarded their own train and started for Mexico, we stood on the’platform and waved them good-by. ° 1 vowed inwardly that, before we met again, I _yould know 2. Hitle more Spenigs than 1 do Hew.

Even if you cannot see any red glow in the sky or hear the bombs and ackack, you do not have any trouble sensing the atmos-

phere of the capital. Relays of tense-voiced announcers are pushing somewhat unintelligible comment over the beam to America. And the homeconsumption radio, on the broadcast band, shudders with evidence of what has happened to local morale. In Japanese, a shrieking woman is calling for donors to the hitherto neglected blood bank. She is talking of the horrors of the bombing, shattered bodies and tenuously held lives. She speaks in the language of the hospitals; of first-degree burns and amputations, severed arteries and tourniquets, blood types, blood transfusions—an amazing program for a people supposed to care nothing about human life. But even if she had been talking of nothing more unusual than new ways ‘to cook rice, you would know that terror had arrived in Tokyo. It is her voice, rather than the subject,” that gives you the notion. She is one citizen of Japan who would not bet much on her prospects for being alive on the morrow. 8 » »

‘Japan Has Lost Face’

THE CAPTAIN (long a student of the Japanese language and

”

miad and sees in it more of the things she has left unsaid. “It is fear, of course,” he says. “She thinks this is going to be something like the 1923 earthquake, only worse. But she is bewildered, too. The Japanese high command said it couldn’t. happen, and it happened. Japan has lost face and death would be preferable to that.” The woman goes on with her keening: “Give your blood as the men at the front are giving theirs,” she demands. “Give your blood. Your lives are in danger. Tomorrow—tonight—your children may be blown to bits. Give your blood. Save them—save Japan.” “An interesting moment, gentlemen—" comments the captain. It’s amazing how much we know about this part of the ocean —how much we know of what were doing, of what they're doing. We have obviously learned a lot since Pearl Harbor, and now, more slowly, the Japs also are learning. The voice of one of Tokyo's graduates of fhe University of Missouri, ‘who had been teamed with “Tokyo Rose” in Englishlanguage transmission of bedtime stories to the west coast, comes now to advise the world in trembling English of the unspeakable outrage. ‘Tokyo is being bombed, he says, in some surprise. Then he reads, somewhat haltingly, from what seems to be a badly written script. “There has been no damage at all to military objectives,” he says, “but several schools, hospitals and shrines have been destroyed. Thirty primary school children were machine-gunned in the streets.”

not believe that. First one way, and then another, they are a hard people to convince.

New Heights of Bushido

ONE OF THE OFFICERS in the close-packed group about the radio asks the senior aviator about that. He says no. : “Those planes had to be big ones to do the job at all,” he says, as the agitated commentator struggles on with the story of the unimportant carnage. “You notice that none of those boys knows whose planes they are. Put it all together and it means they came sailing over so high that nobody saw them come, and nobody has got close enough to see them yet, even though they've been dropping clunks all over the place. “They never took a chance on’ coming into range of the ackack. Naturally, they wouldn't trade the advantage of altitude to machine-gun a lot of school kids, no matter how good the idea may have been. On the face of the evidence, they would say that the bombings had been a great success.” : The announcer rises’ to new heights of bushido. “This attack upon the civilian population—this killing of children—was quickly met,” he says, chokingly. “Our patrol planes were already in the air when this armada of Chinese, American and Russian bombers came in from the sea. Our anti-aircraft batteries went into action at once. Nine of the enemy bombers were

: “7° . shot down as shey were turned . “ philosophy) translates her. jere-.- : y urn

about- and forced to fly southward from the capital. The others are being pursued by our fighters and won’t escape us.’

The New Script Arrives

THERE IS A LULL. Then comes another voice, rumbling something offstage in Japanese, and the commentator resumes as if reading from a new script: “Nine unidentified planes have been shot down. Scores of unideRtified planes have been driven from the skies over Tokyo. Damage, save for one small area on the outskirts of the city, 1s slight.” The senior aviator laughs. “More evidence that the raid was a success,” he says. “We've shot down nine planes, but we don’t know whose.” The commentator, less excited now, continues. “Japan rejoices because -our emperor escaped all harm in this cowardly attack. The prime minister, the chiefs of the victorious forces on land, and sea and in the air immediately paid calls at the palace to reassure his majesty and explain what steps have been taken to drive off such attacks as this and insure the security of Japan.” » ” ”

Boast of New Invention

IT WAS ONLY a few hours ago—last night, in fact—when this same announcer, less worried perhaps, but no better informed, was cheering the wardreom no end with the boast of the military

chiefs that Japan could never be -

bombed—that the United States, powerless to operate at long dis-

- of resemblances.)

- radio personalities

SECOND SECTION

we _

“Radio Play-by- Play on Tok 0 ‘Bombing Jap Broadcaster Certain Planes Came From Biggest

Warship Since Noah's Ark

By ROBERT J. CASEY Copyright, ee by The Indianapolis Times and The Chicago Daily News, Inc,

WITH THE UNITED STATES PACIFIC FEET, Off the Coast of Japan, April, 1942.—The Pacific hereabouts is strewn with the wreckage of Japanese patrol boats. The ether is filled with strange rumblings of alarm. Tokyo, just over the western horizon, appears to be afire—and Yokohama and Nagoya and Kobe. And you wonder if there is any connection between these things. So far as we can see from where we sit (in the position of witches annoying the Japs no end) the millenium has not yet arrived. Morning will find most of Honshu is- E land still afloat and most of tinderbox Tokyo still safe from ash sifters. But it is quite apparent that the Japanese do

Gen. Jimmy Doolittle sits on the wing of his wrecked bomber “somewhere” in China after the Tokye:

bombing chore,

tances, has been unable to deliver a single airplane to Russia. “Japanese invention has produced a new air arm that will paralyze’ our enemies,” he ‘had boasted. “It’s equal in all ways and superior in many to the Eng-

lish Hurricane and the American

flying fortress.” (We had wondered about that odd combination “It. has made invasion of our shores by air im‘possible. And in our invineible security, we ask ourselves, ‘what has become of the advertised American air power? , What has become of the British and American fleets, if any?’” The gunnery officer—as does everybody else in the wardroom— seems to recall these things without further reminder. “And now,” he says, “they’re hoping they can get themselves out of town before Tokyo burns down and their new airplane is not working and as for the. fleet—.” He does not have to go on with it. Anybody aboard could have told the Japanese where the fleet is. Their own patrol boats probably will be spreading the glad tidings, before we can. get around to sinking them in: -the morning, that we are closer to Japan than most of the units of the Mikado’s home navy —a mighty fantastic expedition, this, and it gets no less fantastic as the quavering voice of Tokyo goes on into the night.

#" 2 #

Decide They Were Yanks

“TOKYO WAS railed today by unidentified land planes,” comes a bulletin which shows that the Japs have abandoned the theory of a Chinese-Russian-American alliance. : “The raid was quickly dispersed,” it continues. “Nine of the planes were shot: dawn, many probably damaged by our fighters. "There is" no damage.” An hour later the announcer declared that “a study of tail markings” led Jap experts to be‘lieve that all the raiders (including, no doubt, the unidentified nine that had been presumably shot down) were American. They did no damage, he reiterates. They did no damage—

” # s

The Strategist Appears

“FIRES STARTED by the alleged bombing in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Knobe are now under control—" This announcement comes at about 7 o'clock, Tokyo time— eight hours. after a shocked propagandist announced the’ fall of the first bomb on old Yeddo. Even. if the bulletins have unquestionably begun to tell the truth, it is evident that the “alleged bombing” was done fairly well, probably not enough to justify the dither in which the capitals of the English-speaking find themselves, but fairly well. There comes presently the inevitable “study” of the situation by a home strategist. He turns out to be quite like any number of American experts. “The bombers which struck Tokyo were large planes, capable of carrying a heavy load,” he is quoted, pompously, by . some

One of those doughty Doolittle bomboys, injured in parachuting to safety in China after the raid on Tokyo, lies on a cot in a Chinese home. Col. John Hilger of the U. 8. army air force is at rear, left.

rough-voiced ‘member of the studio staff. And that is about the last point at which he seems to make much sense. “They came to Japan over three possible routes,” he says. “The first possibility is that they came from the south—from China or the Philippines. The second is that they operated from the Aleutian islands. Amd the third, of course, is that they were based on a secret landing field in Japan proper.” (The possibility that the bombers might have been commercial planes operated by fifth

columnists is not considered by

this unresourceful ' expert.) The suggestion of a secret air base in Japan interests our executive officer who thinks that maybe we are heading for that place to establish a secret naval base—an idea which at the moment is probably figuring in Tojo’s current set of jitters. For héurs this goes on while our men-of-war continue their mysterious jaunt along this definitely unappreciative coast. We turn from the broadcast to presumably more serious concerns, For one thing, the, air ‘attack, coming as it did as 2 complete surprise to the Japs, has brought about a lete change in patrol strategy. Thé resultant confusion is somiething to gladden the ear. The commanders of the defense fleet has had ‘no way of estimating our strength, They cannot guess our purpose. And they are naturally ' cautious about coming to see for themselves.

So, out there in the dark, they’

draw in their strength while we continue our. strange business in what should be the most congested submarine zone in their home defense waters,

” ” 2

They Wait Next Attack

ONE DAY LATER, April, 1942. —~This morning, as we have learned by piecing together some bits of comment from our wildeyed Tokyo informants, Japanese planes are out in force looking for us, and with us an airplane carrier apparently half a mile

long (we think it might have done

better with a longer flight deck), = with a displacement of probably = 200,000 tons, and a crew of 3000 ) men—the biggest ship since Noah's ark. i And until somebody has anae lyzed the long-distance photos* graphs taken by the Japs’ signal corps and discovered that the visiting. bombers were three. times the size of the average carrier plane, thus “hunt for & supéfe whooper-dooper continues. Then the searchers give up and

presumably +g0 home to sit ner« « =

vously awaiting for the next ate tack.

A Real Case of Nerves

THE MOST RECENT expert |

over the radio in Tokyo says that

the raiding bombers were North 8 American B-25’s, which, in view =

of the previous accuracy of this source, probably means that they

were Messerschmitts. But if they A

were B-25’s, then they weighed 18 tons apiece, and they had a wings

spread too great to permit them to be fitted into any hangar deol (ih

on any -hangar afloat. J They are generally operated = from runways half a mile to &

mile long, and they have a lands ing speed of over 100 miles an

hour. Hence the search for the super-ark. Hence the nervous state of the high command and’ the Japanese air force over problem that seems to Jusuity nerves. The noon dispatches mention that Gen. Muto, former chief of home defenses, has been ordered to a line regiment with a possible i stopover at Hari-Kari. Mr. Muto was asked how the bombing came about and he ape parently did not know any more" of the answers than anybody else,

He probably realizes that he has =

seen the accomplishment of ‘am: epoch-making turn in aerial war technique. But there is no in his experience to tell him h the trick worked—and how it ma; be worked again tomorrow, next week, or any day. And, for the moment, nobody} talking. ;

By VICTOR PETERSON

Bluff rd., faced a problem.

knuckles he served. ‘

for you.

the land back of the club.

Gus Hitzelberger, the rotund, to-bacco-masticating proprietor of the

Liberal View League club, 2937/ble Gus took a tip

Came meat rationing and Gus was in as much a pickle as the pig

Of course, it didn’t make a lot of difference because when you ordered a baked ham sandwich you got pig knuckles and kraut. And when you ordered pig knuckles and kraut you got ham. Both served with Gus who sits down and sats half your meal Now- practically all the food Gus puts befére ‘you, ‘accompanied by good-natured insults, - comes from

There's the regular farm land and

“Every one of them froze,” said Gus between tobacco squirts. But with meat gone fromethe tathe barn-

yard fowl and sf from scratch. And it looks for the duration as though customers of the club are going to get pickled chick knuckles and kraut or chickham sandwiches.

Turning the greenhouses into chicken houses, Gus now has 4225 fowls. That is as of yesterday. Every two weeks he adds 1600 new two-|’ day old chicks, - 3 " “I don't care what color or kind they are. All I want is meat. Course, |r sell some, too,” he said. We found Gus yesterday in a swirl of dust in the greenhouse. He was making a brooder out of packing cases for propellers the Curtiss-Wright plant. And he was having himself a

{time. The temperature in the house

was up near 80 degrees, but he was bundled to the ears in three or four sweaters, an overcoat, a battered

fat ane » tise day. shite wa wa

All’ wired ,up, he turned to us. Then he jerked his head back toward the resembling movies. ya Two wires were left over. “To -~--- with it,” said Gus. “I don’t know a thing about chickens except they grow and fight,” he said as he shooed g recalcitrant hen from the path with his coat, © : Now Gus is either lazy or smart, for the chickens shift pretty much

action in the first

'g with a movement

for themselves. Throughout the greenhouses Gus has sown what he calls marvelous mix, It seems to be

a mixture ything green that grows . . . igfluding weeds.

Al the chicks have to do is start

But that's not all. There are rabbits, too. At the time. of the chicken venture Gus bought six does, two bucks and some small ones. Now he has 58. “Marvelous? ain’t it,” he mused.

Greenhouses Turned Into Chickenhouses to Beat Meat Rationing’